by Frank Cobb
CHAPTER X
CONSEQUENCES
For her junior year Bea was fortunate enough to secure a mail-route, theproceeds of which helped to make her independent of a home allowance forspending money. To tell the truth, however, she enjoyed the work evenmore than the salary. While distributing the letters she felt a personalshare in every delighted, "Oh, thank you!" in each ever-unsatisfied, "Isthat all?" or the disappointed, "Nothing for me to-day?"
From her own experience and observation during the years already past,she was particularly interested in the different pairs of roommates whocame within the scope of her daily trips. In a certain double lived twofreshmen, one of whom always greeted her with, "Oh, thank you!" whetherthe mail was addressed to her or to her roommate. But when the roommateanswered the knock, she invariably exclaimed, no matter how much washanded to her, "Is that all?"
More than once in her reports to Lila, Bea declared that it was abouttime for a wave of reform in the vicinity of Ethelwynne Bruce. Perhapsshe might even have contemplated the possibility of engineering somethingof the kind herself, if she had not been too busy to spare the necessarythought-energy. In the course of events, fate with its machinery ofcircumstances added an extra lesson to Ethelwynne's college course.
It happened one evening during the skating season.
Ethelwynne with her skates jingling over her arm came shivering into theroom. "Oo-oo-ooh!" Her teeth chattered. "Wynnie's freezing. Do shut thatwindow and turn on the heat, Agnes. It is hard lines to live in a doublewith a regular Polar bear direct from the land of Sparta. You ought tokeep it up as high as forty degrees anyhow."
"Sh-h!" The smooth dark head at the desk bent lower over the water-colorbefore her. "Don't interrupt this minute. There's a dear. I've got tocatch this last streak of daylight----"
"But it isn't daylight," fretted Ethelwynne, "the moon's up already. AndI'm so chilly! I wish you would help me make some hot chocolate."
"Look at the thermometer. Ah, one more stroke of that exquisite saffronon the stem! Hush, now. Look at the thermometer, look at thethermometer," she muttered abstractedly while concentrating all hermental attention in the tips of her skilful fingers.
Ethelwynne stared at her a moment before giving a little chuckle thatended in a shiver. "Look at the thermometer, look at the thermometer,"she echoed sarcastically, "I reckon that'll warm me up, won't it? Likesomebody or other who set a lighted candle inside the fireless stove andthen warmed himself at the glowing isinglass. Suppose your oldthermometer does say seventy or eighty or ninety or a hundred? Maybe itis telling a story. Why should I trust an uneducated instrument that hasnever studied ethics? Now listen here!" She lifted her skates and poisedthem to throw from high above her head. "Hist! if you don't drop thosehideous toadstools of yours and begin to sympathize with me this instant,I shall hur-r-rl this clanking steel----"
Agnes still painting busily raised one elbow in an attitude ofhalf-unconscious defense.
"----upon the floor-r-r!"
At the crashing rattlety-bang Agnes sprang to her feet with a nervousshriek. Ethelwynne dived for her skates and felt them carefully. "I triedto pick out the softest spot on the rug," she complained whimsically,"but there wasn't any other way to wake her up. And I simply had to havesome sympathy. Oo-oo-ooh, Wynnie's freezing!"
Agnes had returned to her brushes and was wiping them dry in heartlesssilence.
"Wynnie's freezing, I say."
"Say it again," counseled the other's calm voice. "I am so provoked atmyself for jumping at every little noise! It is shameful to have solittle control over my own nerves even if I am tired. Ah! what was that?"
"Jump again," advised Ethelwynne in a tone that was meant to be serenebut proved rather jerky. "It was nothing but my teeth chattering andclicking together."
"Generally it's your tongue," retorted Agnes with interest but broke offin this promising repartee to exclaim with genuine anxiety, "Why, Wynnie,child, you have a regular chill. Lie down quick and let me cover you up.Have you been out skating ever since I left you on the lake?"
"Yes, I have," she replied with an air of defiance, "you needn't preach.I couldn't bear to come in. Everybody out. We had square dances,shinney-on-the-ice, wood tag. Perfectly glorious! Such a splendid elegantsunset behind the bare trees! I simply had to stay. Beatrice Leigh andher crowd were there. A big moon came sailing up. We skated tomusic--somebody whistled it. I couldn't bear to stop. I wanted to stay, Itell you. I wanted to stay."
"Hm-m," said Agnes, "I wanted to stay too. But what with the Latin testto-morrow and this plate for the book on fungi to be sent off in themorning, I managed to tear myself away."
"You're different. Oo-oo-ooh!" Ethelwynne shivered violently again. "Youlike to deny yourself. You enjoy discipline. It gives you pleasure to dowhat you hate. You love duty just because it is disagreeable."
"My--land!" Agnes clutched her own head. "The infant must have slipped upa dozen times too often. Did the horrid bad ice smite her at the base ofthe brain? Poor little darling! Is her intellect all mixedy-muddle-y? Wewill fix it right for her. We'll give her a pill."
"I think I have caught cold," moaned her roommate from the depths of theblankets.
Agnes looked judicial. "Our doctor at home has a theory that people takecold easily when they have been eating too much sweet stuff. He says thatcolds are most frequent after Thanksgiving. Now I wonder--I believe--why,you surely did go to a meeting of the fudge-club in Martha's room lastnight. Ethelwynne, did you eat it? Did you eat it even after all thedoctor said to you about your sick headaches?"
"Of course I ate it. How do you expect me to sit hungry in a roomful ofgirls all digging into that plateful of brown delicious soft hot fudgewith their little silver spoons, and I not even tasting it? I hated tomake myself conspicuous before the juniors there. They would think I am ahypochondriac, and Berta Abbott might have said something to make theothers look at me and laugh. I don't believe the stuff hurts me aparticle. Doctors always want you to give up the things you like best."
"Oh, Ethelwynne!" groaned Agnes, "you never deny yourself anything. It isthe only trait I don't like in you. Now you have caught a dreadful coldjust because you could not refuse the candy. You must break it up withquinine." She fetched a small box from the bureau in her bedroom. "Here,open your mouth."
The other girl opened her mouth obediently. "I love pills. We'rehomeopaths, you know. Once when I was a baby, I got hold of mother'smedicine chest and ate all the pellets. I thought they were candy.Sweet--oh, delicious! I used to enjoy being sick. And now this nice bigchocolate-coated pill!" She sprang up suddenly, her face twisted into anexpression of agony. "Oh, oh, oh!"
Agnes white as a sheet flew to her side. "What is it? Quick, quick,Wynnie! Is it your heart? Your head? A darting pain! Where, oh, where?"
"Crackie!" Ethelwynne ruefully rubbed her mouth. "I've been sucking thatpill."
After a moment's struggle to retain her sympathetic gravity, Agnes gaveway and dropping her head on her hands shook alarmingly for at least halfa minute.
"I told you I was a homeopath," expostulated Ethelwynne, "how was I toknow that allopaths always swallow their pills whole?"
"Wh-wh-why did you suppose it was coated with chocolate?" gasped Agnes.
"So as to improve the taste of course and tempt me to eat it. I am fondof chocolate. If it is my duty to eat a pill, I want it to be inviting. Idon't want to do anything that I don't want to do, specially when I amsick. Well, anyhow, I shall never touch another."
However, by bedtime Ethelwynne was feeling so miserable that finallyafter long urging she consented to swallow another dose of quinine in theorthodox way. She allowed Agnes to put a hot water bottle at her feet andto tuck in the coverlets cozily; and then she tried to go to sleep. Butthat was another story. It was a story of fitful jerks and starts, ofburning fever alternating with shivering spells, of terrifying dreams andwretched haunted hours of wakefulness. At last the longed-for morningstole in at the windows to find her eyes heavy, her
limbs languid, herbrain muddled and dull, her head roaring.
It was the quinine that had done it--she knew it was--unspeakably worsethan the cold unattended. Worried Agnes acknowledged that the dose mighteffect some systems violently.
"But it has broken up your cold," she pleaded, "that's certainly gone."
"What?" said Ethelwynne fretfully, "don't mumble so and run your wordstogether. I can't hear the gong very well either. And the Latin test iscoming the first hour after breakfast. I haven't had a chance to reviewan ode. I feel so wretched! Oh, me! oh, me!"
Ethelwynne never forgot that Latin test. The very first line written bythe instructor on the blackboard smote her with despair. She had neverbeen able to translate from hearing anyhow. This morning when Miss Sawyertook her seat on the platform and opened her book, Ethelwynne bentforward anxiously, every nerve alert and strained. What was the firstword? Oh, what was it? She had not caught it. It sounded blurred and mazywith no ending at all. And the next--and the next! And the third! Now shehad lost it. The first was gone. She had forgotten the second. The voicewent reading on and on. She floundered after, falling farther and fartherbehind. There wasn't any sense to it, and she couldn't hear the wordsplainly, and everything was all mixed up. The other girls seemed tounderstand. They were writing down the translation as fast as they couldscribble--at least some of them were. But she could not make out aparticle of meaning. It was Agnes's fault--it was all her fault. She hadcoaxed her to take the quinine, and now she could not hear plainly orthink or remember or anything.
In wrathful discouragement she turned to the rest of the questions. Oneor two were short and easy. She managed to do the translations alreadyfamiliar. But when she reached the last part and attempted to write downan ode which she had memorized the week before, she found that many ofthe words had slipped away from her. The opening line was vivid enough,then came a blank ending in a phrase that kept dancing trickily from spotto spot in her visual imagination of the page. Here she recalled twowords, there three, with a vanishing, vague, intangible verse between.The meaning had slid away utterly, leaving only these faulty mechanicalimpressions of the way the poem had looked in print. Struggle as shewould, the thought frolicked and pranced just beyond the grasp of hermemory.
Ethelwynne bit her lip grimly and put the cap on her fountain-pen. It wasnot the slightest use. Miss Sawyer had always told them to learn the odesunderstandingly, not in parrot fashion. It was better to submit a blankthan a paper scribbled with detached words and phrases. It was allAgnes's fault--every bit. She had forced her to swallow that pill--thepill that had muddled her brain and dulled her hearing--the pill whichwas causing her to flunk in Latin. She had known that ode perfectly onlythe previous day. It wasn't her fault--it was entirely Agnes's. She wouldgo instantly and tell her so.
And she went the moment class was over. To be sure, she did not go sofast as she wished, for her head had a queer way of spinning dizzily atevery sudden movement. Once or twice her knees faltered disconcertinglyin her progress down the corridor. But at last she reached the room andwalked in with a backward slam of the door.
Agnes was putting the final touches to the water-color drawing ofexquisite fungi before her.
"Sh-h," she murmured, "don't interrupt. Just one more stroke--andanother--now this tiny one. There, it is finished. Professor Strattonsends her manuscript off to-day and she is waiting for this. Think of it!Thirty dollars for this sheet of paper! Thirty whole big beautifuldollars to send home for Christmas. They need it pretty badly. I'veworked hours and hours, and now they shall have a real Christmas! I knowwhat mother wants and couldn't afford----"
Ethelwynne stamped her foot. "It was all your fault. I couldn't hear. Icouldn't think. I couldn't remember. The pill did it. You made me takeit. You always think you know best. You're always preaching and advising.You wanted to make me flunk. You knew it would make my ears ring and myhead whirl. You did it on purpose. I shall never forgive you, never,never, never!"
"What!"
At the tone Ethelwynne suddenly shivered, threw herself on the couch, andfell to crying weakly. "I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it at all. I onlywanted to say something horrid. I wanted you to suffer too. I just wantedto say it, and so I did say it. Oh, oh, oh, I am so miserable! I want togo home."
Agnes paid no attention. In her sudden sharp resentment at thepreposterous accusation, she had swung around in her chair, and her elbowhad tipped over the inkwell, spilling the contents over the desk. She satstaring in horrified silence at her ruined drawing.
Finally Ethelwynne puzzled by the continued stillness peered with one eyefrom the sheltering fringes. She sprang up with a jump.
"Agnes, your beautiful fungi!"
A knock sounded at the door.
"Come," called Agnes in mechanical response. There was a pause; then theknob turned and the visitor entered with diffident step.
Ethelwynne hastily smoothed her hair with one hand and felt of her beltwith the other. "Oh, good evening, Professor Stratton," she stutteredfrom surprised embarrassment, "I mean, good morning. How do you do? Won'tyou sit down?"
Agnes turned to look, and rose in sober greeting.
"You see it is spoiled," she pointed to the ink-splotched drawing. "Itwas an accident. You don't know how exceedingly sorry I am, ProfessorStratton. The work on your book can go on without it, I hope."
The older woman forgot her incorrigible shyness in dismay. "What a shame!How distressing!" She hurried forward impulsively to examine the sheet."Since you brought it to me last night I have been exulting in thethought of it. You have great talent for such work. The time you havespent on it! How distressing!" She stopped in thoughtful fear that shemight be adding to the girl's disappointment. "An accident, you say? Howdid it happen?"
"Something startled me so that I twirled around in my seat, and my elbowknocked the ink over. I--I am very sorry." Her lips felt stiff.Ethelwynne watching with miserable eyes saw her moisten them. They weredrooping at the corners.
"It is my fault," she burst out hurriedly, "it is all my fault. I made herjump. I startled her on purpose. I said mean things to her because I feltlike saying them. I felt like saying them because I had flunked in Latin.And I flunked in Latin because I took a p-p-pill--oh, no, no! I mean,because I caught cold from staying out on the ice too long. And I stayedout long because I wanted to. And the reason why I caught cold fromstaying out too long was because my digestion was upset from eating fudgewhen the doctor told me not to. And I ate the fudge because I wanted it.And it is all my fault. It is all because I do things just because I wantto do them and not because I ought to do them or ought not to do them. Iought to leave them undone, you know. And Prexie says that most miseriesin life come from that attitude of I-do-it-because-I-want-to-do-it-and-I-don't-do-it-because-I-don't-want-to-do-it. And now Agnes won't havethirty dollars to send home for Christmas. And it is all my----"
"Hush!" said Agnes, "hush, now, dear! That'll be all right. It was myfault anyhow. I should have had better control of my nerves and learnednot to let myself get startled." She smiled reassuringly across the bowedhead into Professor Stratton's concerned eyes.
"I will see what I can do about holding back the manuscript till youreproduce the drawing," said the older woman, "it is barely possible thatI can manage it."
As the door closed softly behind her, Ethelwynne lifted her tear-wetface.
"Agnes, do you think it was the pill that did it?"
"Did what? Everything?"
"Oh, no, no! Was it the pill that made me flunk in Latin?"
"I don't know," she answered doubtfully, "perhaps it helped."
"I want to say it was the pill. I want to believe it was the pill. I wantto, but I won't, because it wasn't--not really way down underneath truly,you know. It was my own selfish self." She reached up both arms to drawAgnes closer in a repentant hug. "Wynnie's sorry," she said.